I never really understood what a startup was while I was in school. I was more interested in science and imagined myself going to work in health care. 

However, after graduating from the University of New Brunswick with a degree in biochemistry, my mom sent me an ad for a job as an entrepreneurial services coordinator at Planet Hatch—a company that works to connect start-ups and new businesses with the resources they need to grow their businesses. The job consisted of connecting business owners with Planet Hatch’s partners, from accountants to mentors, anyone well-equipped to offer young entrepreneurs advice.

My passion for science has always been at the core of what I do, but I realized during my time in university that innovation alone isn’t enough—you need a strong business foundation to bring ideas to market and create real-world impact. I took the job.

It’s at Planet Hatch where I met my future collaborator David Brown at a lunch-and-learn event. His background was also science-related, and he started telling me about the research he’d been doing with mushrooms, studying their naturally-sustainable properties. A lightbulb went off in my head. I’d seen firsthand from my studies how much artificial preservatives were used in the food industry—and had been used forever—-and I realized here lay a better, more natural alternative. 

But my time at Planet Hatch had confirmed what I knew before taking the job: having a great product isn’t enough. You need to build a business strategy, secure funding, and develop strong industry partnerships to make it successful. That realization drove me to step outside the lab and into the entrepreneurial world with David.

When mushrooms are harvested, there’s a lot of stem left over that’s typically composted or thrown out before they’re sold in grocery stores. At Chinova Bioworks, we upcycle mushroom stems from farmers in Canada and derive a product called Chiber from them, a natural preservative that conserves the quality, freshness, and shelf life of food and beverage products. 

We sell Chiber directly to manufacturers and ingredient suppliers who are looking for a clean-label, natural preservative. Today’s consumers want what they consume to be healthy, eco-friendly, and ethically sourced. By creating a sustainable preservative like Chiber, one made from upcycled ingredients, we simultaneously give consumers a product that is better for them and better for the planet.

We soon encountered the biggest challenge all food-related companies face—regulatory approval. In order to bring Chiber to market, we’d need to get its use approved by regulatory agencies like Health Canada and United States’ Food and Drug Administration.

We spent the company’s first two years conducting the tests necessary to get the approvals. During that time, we slowly built our company, obtaining grant funding and employing industry experts who were tested in the food preservative market. As a new business owner, I knew I’d need help and made sure to always surround myself with people who were more knowledgeable than me so that I could soak up as much information as possible. 

Years of waiting for regulators to give us a legal go-ahead really tested us. We were building a company around a product that wasn’t approved. Without that approval, our efforts would potentially be for nothing. But finally our patience paid off. After two years, Health Canada and the FDA signed off on Chiber and we were able to introduce it to the market. 

We immediately met our next biggest challenge: educating brands on why they should replace artificial preservatives. Many companies were used to the conventional options available to them and hesitant to switch, even though consumers were demanding cleaner labels. To overcome this, we conducted extensive case studies to prove Chiber’s efficacy and collaborated exhaustively with potential customers to prove its’ worth. 

With $15 million raised from investors for Chinova Bioworks, today we work with over 1,000 companies in Canada and the United States—many of which we’ve been in business with for eight years—and we are actively working to expand in Mexico, Brazil and Australia. 

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Developing a startup as a young woman in STEM came with its challenges. Food manufacturing is often a male-dominated industry, and there are often moments where I need to work harder to be taken seriously—whether it be when securing funding or simply to have my voice heard in technical discussions. However, these difficulties have fueled my passion for being surrounded by peers who look like me, so as we’ve grown, we’ve worked to create a more diverse and inclusive workspace, by partnering with universities and colleges to offer more young women internships at Chinova. 

We see a lot of opportunities to expand into new food and beverage products as brands continue to prioritize clean-label ingredients and sustainability. Our goal is to make Chiber the go-to natural preservative, helping brands replace artificial preservatives. In an industry that is traditionally slow to innovate, I envision us making a big impact on the food supply chain.

—As told to Michael Caruso